Ruminations on Love and Loss

My old cat has come in to bed with me as he is wont to do in the mornings and has laid his soft warm body across my chest. He snuggles his head under my chin as a newborn babe lays its head against its mother’s neck.  It is a trusting thing and reminds me of tiny babies I have nursed and loved.  All  grown up now into such independent adults who don’t really share my memories of the precious moments when I had them to myself at 2 am, when all the world was asleep and it was just the two of us cocooned in that moment, so filled with love it was almost too much to bear. 

Raji isn’t very heavy though he’s a tall cat. He is very thin now and when I pick him up I can feel his bones. The vet says she’s pretty sure he has a tumour near his bowel.  He’s 14; a pure bred red point Berman.

“Is there anything that can be done,” I asked, hope trembling my voice.  “You could try an ultrasound but you would need to go to Sydney for that.  And if it is a tumour you could try some chemo but surgery won’t help.”

As I heard this I was thrown back to an almost identical scenario when my husband was diagnosed with his terminal illness. Then I didn’t have to make the decision – only to stand by him in whatever he chose to do. And he chose quality over quantity.  Now I have the decision to make alone. And I think “how can I put this gentle creature through that awful treatment which he won’t understand, just to keep him for a little longer with me. So the decision was simple - just palliative care and cherish the time I have with him. 

But simple is a head decision and doesn’t stop the heart from aching. 

And so I share his last months with him.  Does he know something is happening?  Does he really come to me more often for cuddles or do I just imagine that because it comforts me.  At times I wonder how I will manage without him.  He has been my comfort through my grieving. Who will comfort me when he goes?  Can I bear another loss?  Of course I know I must.  But there have been so many losses over the years and now as I get older I find those losses aching my heart at odd moments.

I look in the mirror some mornings and I see my mother’s shoulders  and I wish I could talk to her now and tell her I understand so much more about how she felt than I did when I was younger and so busy. I sometimes see myself through my grandchildren’s eyes and realize they think of me as an old lady.

So I guess in a way this impending loss is part of a new phase of my life. I don’t expect to completely retire.  But I will take a new path of work.  Will I become a writer?   Or is there another journey awaiting me?  Once a psychic woman told me that when I was about 87 I would be dictating a book to my secretary in the morning and in the afternoon as I sat in my favourite chair I would just go.   “That’ll do me just fine” I thought.  So it seems I have a few years yet.  I hope to do them well.

And as I write this I hear Raji calling at the door to be let in.   He has woken from his sleep in the shade outside and now is sitting at my feet crying to be picked up.  He stands on his hind legs and reaches his front paw up to stroke my face as I lean down to him.  How can I not give him my lap to curl in while I finish writing this?  He buries his head against my arm and his soft purring is like a lullaby as he drifts into sleep.